Hi-ho! Hi-ho! It's off to Kansas we go!

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD."
~Isaiah 55:8~

This picture says a thousand words...really. This is a picture of Aaron and I singing at Mission Road Bible Church in Kansas. Yes, I did say Kansas. Most of you know this, but it is about time I finally share with the blogger world that the Johnsons are moving! Yup! That's right. And to a place we like to joke is "the middle of nowhere." :) a.k.a...Kansas!

I never in my wildest, or not so wild, dreams, would have seen this one coming. In fact, I have always informed the Lord that I never want to live in the Midwest because it is equidistant from both oceans, which to me once again means, "the middle of nowhere." Haha...how I laugh at myself. Apparently the Lord knows better than me when it comes to my human desires. But you know what else...He CHANGES human desires.

Ok...let's rewind a bit.

Aaron and I found out early on in the summer that due to budgetary reasons (mainly), he was probably going to be let go from Placerita Baptist Church. This was then confirmed in August. I won't go into all the details, but our world was turned upside down for a while. We were quite surprised, and lets just say that the sponge (our lives) was being squeezed, and the water that came out wasn't always so pretty. But to sum it all up, we are so thankful for that squeeze. The Lord showed us sin, mainly pride, that we didn't know was there. He showed us that although we thought we were loving people, that love was not exactly Christ-like, which remains unchanging through ALL circumstances!

I can say that this summer until now has been precious, because our relationship with our heavenly Father has been so much more intimate. During the time of wondering where we would go from here and what job the Lord would provide, our need for dependance on the Lord was made so real. I wish I could say that this dependance is always there, even when the practical blessing abound, but it's so easy to get caught up in self-dependance. One of my prayers through this is that we would ALWAYS see that we need Christ for everything, and that we are nothing without Him. Not only is He the ultimate provider of our monetary needs, but more importantly, He is the essential provider of our spiritual needs. And we are certainly spiritually needy people! ALWAYS!

So that is just the tip of the iceberg in lessons we are learning, but since I do not have time to write a book, let me share with you how events have unfolded since this summer. As soon as it was announced to the church body about Aaron being let go, He posted on facebook that he was looking for a new job, preferably in church ministry. Not even 24 hours later and he was on the phone with Rick Holland, who is the senior pastor at MRBC in Kansas City, Kansas. After many phone calls, a visit by the associate pastor from MRBC to PBC, and a trip that we made to visit MRBC, the Lord made it so very clear that this is where he wants us to go. We are absolutely amazed at God's grace....ABSOLUTELY!

There were fears about looking at churches, because in the beginning, Aaron was applying at churches we knew nothing about. So I started praying in the summer, "Lord, please provide a church through connections, so that we can somewhat feel like we would know the senior pastor through reputation." I NEVER in my wildest dreams thought that the Lord would have Aaron work alongside a man we have heard preach quite a few times, and have always grown and been inspired from those times we were able to sit under his teaching (at Grace Community and Resolved conference). Haha...I even remember listening to Rick and Kim's (his wife) tape series on dating when I was about 16.

About my desires...well, to be honest, when I first found out where MRBC was located, I cried. But seeing Aaron's excitement and how the Lord answered my prayer above and beyond, I haven't once looked back. And the picture above reminds me of the wonderful time we had getting to know just a portion of the people at MRBC. I can honestly say that I am completely excited to move to the middle of nowhere! :) Don't get me wrong...just the past couple of days, as Aaron is about to head into his last official week of work at PBC, the realization of all the goodbyes that will be coming in the days ahead causes my lips to quiver and my eyes to water. The goodbyes are going to be hard. Very hard. But I know the Lord will give us grace for that as well. He promises that His grace will always be sufficient, and therefore we have nothing to fear.

Aaron will be done working soon, but we are taken care of financially through the end of January, and then he will begin in Kansas the first week of February. We do not have a set date yet for moving, but we know it will be towards the end of January. If you could pray with us as we have a bit to do in order to prepare our current home to be rented out and that the Lord would provide good renters for our place. If you know of anyone who may be interested, be sure to let us know! :)

Now I just need to find me some red shoes and hit the ol' yellow brick road!